30 years ago I was hand trolling in Icy Straits. Nice flat calm day, not many fish. I managed to break a handle on one of my gurdies. Decided to run to Hoonah to see if I could find a replacement. I ran the boat up to 7 knots, put the auto pilot on and went back to pull the poles up. Earlier in the day the engine was heating up just a bit...so I opened (which I had done many times) a little inspection hatch (round, about 8 inches directly above the shaft coupling) on the back deck to let more air into the little engine room. Ok, back to pulling the poles up. I untied the first one from the cleat on the mast and started pulling...hand over hand. I had done this hundreds of times.

Little did I know that I was running the line down the open hatch, which was only 1/2 open. After about 3-4 pulls the rope managed to catch the coupling and you can imagine how quickly that trolling pole came up. Fortunately I didn't lose a finger or hand, the pole came up about 200 miles an hours, boom, rope wrapped around the shaft the engine killed, as the boat went dead in the water the top 10 to 12 feet of the pole broke off. I looked up and saw it coming down, dove into the cabin....and thought...this could only be happening to me.

Ha! And then did you look around to see if anybody noticed? I remember once when I was in my twenties on my bicycle. I tried to copy how I'd seen little kids jump up on the sidewalk curb while they were pedaling. I jerked up on the handlebars too soon, so my front wheel came down right on the edge of the curb. The bike and I did a 270 degree cartwheel, and my back landed whack flat on the sidewalk. My first concern was not whether I cracked a vertebra, but whether anyone was lookin'. (No on both counts.)